Most likely Republican nominee in 2024 (November 2017)

[Orser67]

Obviously I don't think anyone could make this prediction with any degree of certainty. I'm mostly interested in who people currently think are the "brightest young Republican stars" as a Politico article might put it.

[Orser67]

It pretty much has to be Pence, because you have to consider the odds that 1. Trump gets reelected, in which case he is the clear favorite.  2. Trump retires or resigns and Pence wins in 2020, in which case he would be a 1st term incumbent.  3.  Trump loses in 2020 and Pence pulls a Mondale in 2024.

When you add that all up, he has to be the most likely.

Agreed. I guess I should have said "aside from Pence."

[Orser67]

Aside from Pence, I think Cotton is best positioned for 2024. He'll be 47 years old and will have served 2 years in the House and 9+ years in the Senate; so he'll (theoretically) have experience/knowledge but won't necessarily have the career politician stigma. He also served in combat duty in both Afghanistan and Iraq; as far as I know, no other major candidate has combat experience.

Most importantly, I think he's done the best job of straddling the wings of the Republican Party. He's generally been supportive of Trump but also seems to be a defense hawk and hasn't (afaik) alienated the establishment. Nor has he pissed off his colleagues like Cruz or made a fool of himself on national television like Rubio (though I do think Rubio could bounce back from that one day).

[Orser67]

Wow. How things have changed since then:

- Ron DeSantis was a long-shot gubernatorial candidate. We were all expecting Putnam vs. Graham.
- Dan Crenshaw was a nobody. Did Poe even announce his retirement before this thread was made?
- Josh Hawley was looking like a sacrificial lamb for McCaskill.
- Rick Scott was looking to be another has-been a la Christie/Snyder/Walker/LePage.
- Paul Ryan was nowhere near retirement.

Hawley as a sacrifice lamb was wishful thinking

I don't think many people ever thought that Hawley was just a sacrificial lamb; Missouri was widely regarded as a vulnerable seat that Republicans had a strong chance of winning. It's true that lot of people on Atlas thought that Democrats would net seats in 2018, but iirc very few people rated MO/IN/ND as Likely D or Safe D.

But it would have been a little silly to talk about Hawley as a presidential candidate before the first major election of his career even happened.